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Powhatan Bouldin (1830–1907)

Powhatan Bouldin was a Democratic journalist who
covered the Danville Riot of
1883. The son of a congressman, Bouldin served in a series of Charlotte County public offices
before purchasing a local Danville
newspaper in 1865. He ran the weekly Danville Times until
illness forced his retirement in 1894. The most notable event during his journalistic
career was the Danville Riot, which resulted in the deaths of four African Americans. As
editor of the Danville Times, Bouldin helped shape the
pro-Democratic spin on the violence that spurred the downfall of local Readjuster Party officeholders
in Danville and helped rally white
supremacist Democrats to reclaim political power throughout Virginia. MORE...

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Bouldin was born on May 24, 1830, in Charlotte County, the son of James Wood Bouldin, a member of the House of
Representatives, and his third wife, Almeria Read Kennon Bouldin. He was
educated at private schools and entered the Virginia Military Institute in 1848 but withdrew after nineteen months.
Bouldin returned to Charlotte Court House to practice law. He served as deputy
sheriff and in 1852 as commonwealth's attorney. On March 9, 1855, Bouldin married
Ella Fuqua. They had four sons and two daughters.

Bouldin left his law practice to enlist in the Confederate cavalry on May 15, 1861,
but poor eyesight led to his discharge that December. He moved to Danville shortly
after the war. In the autumn of 1865
Bouldin bought the Danville Appeal. He changed its name to the
Danville Times and edited the paper as a Democratic weekly
until about 1894, when severe illness forced him to discontinue it. In 1877 the paper
had a weekly circulation of more than 900, and in 1885 Bouldin boasted of its
extensive circulation in both Virginia and North Carolina. Too few copies of the Danville Times are extant to document or thoroughly describe
his editorial career.

At the time of his death the Danville Register praised Bouldin for a service he had rendered to the city
and the Democratic Party, "which ever afterwards caused him to be held in grateful
remembrance." The obituary was almost certainly recalling the period of local
Readjuster rule from 1882 to 1883 that terminated with the so-called Danville Riot of
November 3, 1883, during which four blacks were killed. The episode put an end to
Readjuster political power in Danville and served as a campaign rallying point that
restored white Democrats to power in Virginia and led to the downfall of the
Readjusters throughout the state. By the turn of the century many white writers
regarded the Readjusters' biracial coalition as anathema, erroneously portrayed the
period of Readjuster rule as part of Reconstruction (which had ended in Virginia in January 1870), and
characterized the brief period when four African Americans sat on Danville's
twelve-member city council as a period of "Negro domination." An account of the riot
incorporating this interpretation filled seventeen pages of Edward Pollock's 1885 Sketch Book of Danville, a book promoting the city as a
business center.

The precise nature of Bouldin's service to the white Democratic Party is unclear, but
he served as one of three secretaries of the so-called Committee of Forty, put
together after the riot to justify the viewpoint of local Democrats. As editor of the
Danville Times Bouldin presumably both spread the word that
the riot had been nothing more than a deplorable street fight that got out of hand
and successfully worked for the downfall of the local Readjusters and the rise to
power of white supremacist Democrats.

Bouldin also wrote two books. Home Reminiscences of John Randolph of Roanoke (1878) depicts Charlotte
County's most famous
son, as recalled by Randolph's neighbors and acquaintances, including Bouldin's
father. Old Trunk or Sketches of Colonial Days (1888) uses the
contents of a trunk discovered by the author's aged aunt to illuminate his ancestors
and the colonial customs of
Charlotte County. Both volumes belong to a popular genre of local history that
celebrated the customs and local notables of a better and bygone era.

Bouldin died at the residence of his son-in-law in Danville on March 8, 1907, and was
buried in Green Hill Cemetery in that city.

Major Works

Home Reminiscences of John Randolph of Roanoke
(1878)

Old Trunk or Sketches of Colonial Days (1888)

Time Line

May 24, 1830
- Powhatan Bouldin is born in Charlotte County, the son of James Wood Bouldin and his third wife, Almeria Read Kennon Bouldin.

Categories

References

Further Reading

Ailsworth, Timothy S. et al. Charlotte County, Rich Indeed: A
History from Prehistoric Times through the Civil War. Charlotte County,
Virginia: Charlotte County Board of Supervisors, 1979.

Calhoun, Walter T. "The Danville Riot and Its Repercussions on the Virginia
Election of 1883." In Studies in the History of the South,
1875–1922, edited by Joseph F. Steelman et al., 25–51. Greenville, North
Carolina: East Carolina College, 1966.